Clinging Hearts
by FrostedPurpleIrises91
Summary: When a young girl's parents are murdered by a duo of Dark Jedi, she is left frightened and shanghaied by them. But a sudden change of plans lands her in the care of a freshly reconstructed, grumpy, and volatile Kaleesh cyborg. Little does she know of what harsh trials, tribulations and transformations she will endure at his side... GGxOC bonding. AU. T for intense violence/death.


**Hello there! Thank you for giving this a chance by clicking on it and giving it a go~ It's been quite awhile since I wrote anything Star Wars related mostly because I lost my muse with the fandom and I had been mainly engrossed with writing stories within the Transformers fandom. However, after watching the whole fourth season of the Clone Wars on DVD in two days awakened my creativity and zeal for this fandom. And that in itself jumpstarted my plans to post a new story on here!**

**So a little bit about this story... This story is an extensively revamped version of a fic I originally wrote about seven years ago and thank God, I never posted it. This was mainly because the main character I had, an OC, was a big, flamboyantly painful, unbearable Mary Sue. Thankfully, after I delved into the world of fan fiction more and learned more about writing in general, I decided to totally rewrite my originally story and give the OC a huge makeover. So, this is what this story is! I'm still in the process of rewriting it all and I admit that it will take quite awhile to get it done so please have patience if you decide to follow and continue to read this story. **

**The italics in the story denote a character's thoughts and flashbacks. For this story, I will be using a fair amount of them so I'll inform you of that now. The story is also classified as AU for obvious reasons that you'll see soon enough. But don't worry, Anakin will still become Vader and all that jazz... But no spoilers beyond that :) There will also be tons of history involving Grievous' organic past, stuff from the EU and some other things I made up myself since there wasn't too much revealed about it. The story is set 2yrs before the Clone Wars start and I had Grievous placed in his inorganic shell during those 2yrs and not close before the war's eruption like some sources point to. I chose to do so mainly because there was never a specific time given for his transformation and I always liked the idea of him training and preparing for the war before it comes. ****The OC will be in the next chapter and from there, she will play as one of the main characters in this fic. But for now, she's not the main focus. **

**This chapter has strong violence and gore in it so please be wary of that too. Some future chapters will also have such elements and I will warn you at the start of each chapter. I always look forward to constructive criticism in my stories so please feel free to give it if you feel it's necessary. Sorry for the long author note but I wanted to address these things if I left anyone confused. But if you have any questions, I encourage to PM me :) I don't bite. So, please enjoy the story!**

_Clinging Hearts_

Chapter 1 Bloodied Chains

(Geonosis – 24 b.b.y., two years before the eruption of the Clone Wars)

Never before did Darth Tyranus think that a mortal man was capable of such animalistic yet mournful noises. However, his old yet attuned ears didn't betray him and the clamor he was hearing really was happening. Then again, this mortal man who was causing such a bestial ruckus didn't have much of his humanity left after he woke up from his operation ten minutes earlier. So perhaps this odd soul was a mere creature after all.

The elderly Sith apprentice lowered his hand. Faint tendrils of smoke still radiated from his fingertips but had all but completely dissipated when he moved his hand. With a detached and austere gaze, he watched what was beginning to unfold that was the direct result of his actions literally moments earlier. He even ignored the pungent and rank odor of partially cooked flesh that wafted through the air. Folding his hands behind his back and straightening his posture, he planned to remain calm and completely in control of the matter even though the strings on his puppets had been cut.

Not even five minutes earlier, there were approximately forty two people in the room. Now, a mere two remained alive. Forty corpses lie strewn about the floor, covering every inch with mangled, lacerated flesh and free flowing streams of deep, crimson blood. The casualties consisted of ten adult women and thirty children. It looked as if a rogue and rabid gundark had got a hold of them and literally tore them to pieces. Their murderer had no mercy borne to them and had slain them regardless of whether they were a two year old child or a thirty eight year old woman.

Again, the almost rhetorical question of whether the weeping man-creature was of a sentient nature or not. The carnage he had sown could certainly suggest he was a mindless and unreasonable force forged from flesh and metal but the sudden change of heart and horrible realization had opened his gold-colored, reptilian eyes. His angel of salvation, whom had freed him from the sinister grasp of the old man standing behind him, had now been freed herself; but from the confines of her physical body. Even though she looked as if she was merely curling up in pain as her body twitched and was rocked with spasms from the Force lightning, she was truly deceased. Now her disturbing movements were likened to a bug crushed beneath someone's boot. As long as this macabre sight played before him, the Kaleesh warlord grew increasingly distressed and overwhelmed by his emotions.

With his metal knees quaking with disbelief and agony, he knelt down and cradled the body of the young Kaleesh warrior in his arms. He shook her with enough force to rouse someone from sleep but not enough to cause whiplash but there was no reaction from her. Her corpse still continued to lightly smoke from the high voltage of lightning that began to roast her alive but she was still quite inanimate. Even though his heart was a war-hardened and disciplined one, the cyborg could feel tears of sorrow seeping from ducts that he thought had run dry when he lost his soul on the beach nearly two decades earlier.

"Wake up..!" he rasped, no longer paying mind to the fact that his voice had slightly altered as well due to his reconstruction. "Please, get up!" He shook the body of his eldest child again. "Ronderu, I forbid you to leave like this and this early in your life!"

Whatever reason he had left nagged at him, informing that she really was dead and there was no chance her eyelids were going to part. He could shake and plead with this corpse as much as he wanted to but her body would remain hollow and lifeless. But Grievous refused to accept this reality. The twisted truth that he had personally slaughtered his own family under the dark influence of Count Dooku was already painful enough to bear. This final blow upon his heart and soul was just too much.

The tears now began to flow with as great a confluence as the blood that diffused across the floor. They streamed down his mask and then onto the corpse of his child, the tears softly sizzling as they made contact with her hot skin. He threw his cranium back and roared in an odd but heartfelt mix of grief and fury. Grievous hugged her to his frame and buried whatever was left of his face into her neck. When he did that, he wept loudly and openly, letting his sadness run free and wild, temporarily disregarding the Sith still behind him.

She had done what she could to stop her father from murdering her family members. But thanks to the new body he had been granted, his strength was greatly augmented which meant that whatever resistance she put up against him was pitiful and unimportant. A few times he merely threw her off him as she tried to pry one of her littler siblings from her father's claws only to be cast aside and forced to watch as he broke their spines over his knee or effortlessly snap their necks with his talon-like feet or skeletal hands. Her own mother and stepmothers fared no better and they too had their throats ripped out or had perished in some other ghastly manner. Despite her efforts, she had been saved for last as Dooku had controlled Grievous to do.

"_Please, I need you to look inside yourself! That evil man is making you do this! You're not acting like yourself, Father! I know you and I know you would never hurt us!" _

_The young Kaleesh lady's eyes were quite drenched from the fair amount of crying she had done after trying her hardest to protect her family. She steeled herself in the face of certain death in the form of her own mentor and fellow warrior. Ronderu had never felt such terror before in her entire life of eighteen years but even in this unthinkable situation, she was determined to remain strong so she could wrench her father from the tyrannical and heinous grip of the wicked Human who watched the slaughter. From the moment she stepped off the shuttle and onto Geonosian soil and came face to face with the Count, she felt that something was unsettling and amiss with the seemingly frail and amicable old man. Now that this Human had nefariously manipulated her father, she had no qualms with striking him down despite his age. For the moment though, her chief concern lied with bringing her father out from the mind control he was subjected to._

_She made no effort to dodge the clawed hand that lashed out at her and gripped her throat. Ronderu gagged as he applied pressure and placed her hands atop his as he hoisted her off the ground. Upon looking into his eyes, she saw a demonic aura that seemed to blaze from them. It seemed as if the man she knew her whole life had disappeared entirely and this mechanical horror had replaced him in both body and soul. _

"_Please, look into my eyes..!" She squirmed uncomfortably in his iron grip. "Look into them and remember who I am and who you are too! You are not that man's mindless slave! You do have your own will and being and you are dependent on no one! You are the almighty Kaleesh warlord who loves and protects his people and his world!" Ronderu felt her lungs becoming starved of air. A few stray tears dripped from her eyes. "You are my father… I love you and I cannot bear to see you chained, body and soul, to that larcenous, deceitful man! You would never allow that to happen and neither would you let him force you to do what you've just done…"_

_Grievous said nothing and only listened to her tearful and motivational pleas. His hold on her didn't lessen but he didn't apply that extra bit of pressure to snuff her life out. As the Dark Side had clouded his mind and shrouded it with a miasma of evil, he didn't recognize her or the others he had slain. Yet as long as he listened to her voice and continued to stare at her with a ferocious sneer, she somehow began to seem familiar to him. He subtly felt as if he had a connection with her but he couldn't place his finger on it._

_Dooku could sense his puppet's curiosity swelling and then began to feel his connection with Grievous' mind beginning to slip. Scowling in disdain, his eyes hardened and he resolved to assert his superiority._

"_Grievous!" he said in a stern voice. "Terminate the whelp! She is a servant of the Republic! Remember, it was the Republic and their Jedi enforcers who planted that bomb on your ship! It was they who attempted to kill you! They are the ones responsible for robbing you of your old body… Your hour of vengeance is now! Kill the last one…"_

"_NO!" Ronderu cried out loudly. "No, he's a liar! He's lying to you! He's using some sort of sorcery or mind control on you, Father! Stop this now! I am your firstborn! Please, remember me! You named me after the honorable Ronderu lij Kummar, your greatest and dearest companion!"_

_Grievous began to feel terribly conflicted now. The name of his lost love echoed within his warring mind and the voice and face of this familiar girl in his grip didn't make matters any better._

_As the seconds rolled by, he became more and more aware of his memories. For as long as he stared back at Ronderu, he began to remember who he was and felt as if he was slowly awakening from a deep and vivid dream. His mind continued to defog and he felt his memories becoming more crisp and clear. The hold Dooku still had on him remained and was trying to reaffirm its dominance over his mind and body. _

_Ronderu didn't break the staring contest that she and her father were locked in. To her great joy and relief, she saw the evil aura and gleam in his eyes begin to fade away and she felt his hand around her throat loosen slowly but surely. She smiled at what she was seeing but tears still continued to drip from her eyes._

"_You're almost out of that darkness!" she encouraged him. "Just please, keep looking at me and listening hard to my voice." She then wet her lips. "I love you, Father…"_

_He gasped softly even though he no longer needed to breathe anymore. Seconds later, he retracted his hand from around her throat and set her gently on her feet. Grievous set a hand on his head and massaged it as if he was combating a headache. Then he shook it, to rid himself fully of the poison that had twisted his mind. _

"_What…what's going on?" he asked woozily. "…Ronderu?"_

_He then caught sight of all the bodies of his wives and children on the floor. The half droid fell silent, not aware that he had committed such an atrocity while he was under Dooku's power. What little blood he had left flowing through his artificial veins curdled at the horrible scene, wondering what had just happened. His worst fears were confirmed as he gazed upon their bloodied and battered bodies._

"_Melica!" Grievous exclaimed the name of his first wife when he saw her opened yet dead eyes staring at him. He knelt down and tried to feel for her pulse. "Melica, no!"_

_A mere foot away from his wife, he spotted the corpses of his firstborn son and one of his younger daughters. With tears in his eyes, he ran a hand tenderly across their faces. The same hand began to shake with grief and horror. _

"_Qymaen..!" he rasped. "Laetis! M-m-my children!" With a very heavy and shocked heart, he turned around and faced his sole surviving family member. "Ronderu, my child, what's happened here?! Who killed your mothers and siblings?! You've luckily survived this wicked tragedy! Tell me who is responsible for this crime and we shall set out together to take revenge on them! I shall personally rip their heart out with my bare hands and right what is wrong!"_

_He stood up and placed his hands on her shoulders. When he did this, he recoiled, fully realizing and remembering that he had just had awoken from his reconstruction. Now he was standing before Ronderu in his new body and he had no idea what she thought about his transformation. _

"_Father…" Ronderu said waveringly. She swiveled her neck, looking over to Dooku who was standing by and watching everything unfold. Her eyes narrowed at him in hatred. Now that she had saved her father from the Sith's clutches, it was time to take revenge upon the true murderer. "He murdered our family!" She raised a clawed hand and pointed at Dooku. "He had done something to you, turning you into a monster and making you a slave to his sorcery! Father…" She slowly moved her hand to grasp his. "…he made you…"_

_His patience nonexistent and furious that his control over Grievous had been usurped by something as simple as love, Dooku raised his hand. Both Grievous and Ronderu braced themselves, not knowing exactly what was going to happen. A second later, a blue and painfully scorching blast of energy had shot out from his fingertips and engulfed Ronderu._

_The power of the lightning the Dark Sider administered was lethal. Neither Grievous nor Ronderu had time to dodge the killing blast. The younger Kaleesh screamed for a very brief moment and then collapsed onto the ground. Lord Tyranus had grown tired of her meddling and decided that he wanted her dead more than to have her tortured. He wanted her to experience excruciating pain for a few seconds and then perish. Without mercy, he did exactly that…_

The apprentice took a step closer to the mourning cyborg that still held his beloved child in his arms. Grievous was crying loudly now, bemoaning over his horrible luck and his disbelief that he had eradicated his own wives and children. He remained oblivious to the Count's approach since he was too busy mourning.

"Grievous," Dooku cleared his throat, "this was a necessary action. Since we've agreed to enlist you in our cause and lead our droid armies against the Republic, I needed your complete loyalty and attention. Your family would only distract you from the war effort and take advantage of your feelings and focus. Judging by this disgraceful uproar you're causing, I knew I made the right choice in making you execute them. Now that they are no more, they will not occupy your thoughts as much. You must also consider this as an act of mercy. I fully believe that Republic agents would take advantage of your large brood in particular and hold them for some ridiculous ransom or other form of blackmail. You've spared them from any dangers that this upcoming civil war will spawn."

He fell silent, expecting a reply of some sort from his minion. Instead, he was given uneasy quiet. Dooku reminded himself that his lightsaber was around his belt at his disposal in the event that Grievous should fail to see the reason in his cold yet calculated plot. The Sith still refused to speak further and continued to wait. What made the situation tenser was that after Dooku spoke, there wasn't even any crying from Grievous.

"Grievous," he addressed him again. "Answer me."

He finally got an answer in the form of the warlord slowly and lovingly placing Ronderu down on the bloody floor. Then he stood up and turned around, glaring at his master hatefully. Grievous' hands clenched into tight fists and he growled deeply at him.

"YOU!" he thundered. "How dare you! You have destroyed my life!" True to the noises he was hearing earlier, Dooku could see tears still falling from Grievous' eyes. His mask was moistened and the salty moisture slowly dripped into the pools of blood at his feet. "Through that accursed Sith magic of yours, you forced me to do a vile sin! Then as soon as I regained my mind and body back through the words and love of my daughter, you killed her!"

"It's for the best of our cause and your own…" the Count said callously. "It cannot be undone and we must move forward now."

Violently, Grievous stomped a foot into the floor. He made sure he was not squishing a body beneath his foot when he did this but he did it in a pool of blood. Some stray droplets sprayed in random directions, some flecking Grievous' armor and others on Dooku's boots. Now the same wicked look in his eyes that Ronderu faced made a return except this time they were directed towards the Sith.

"First the Republic and the Jedi wronged my homeworld and sided with the Huk!" he ranted. "Now, the Sith have possessed my mind and commanded me to do the unspeakable! Tell me, Count, what other things have you been lying to me about?! I will ally with no one now since everyone seems to take pleasure in manipulating me and making my existence all the more difficult and miserable!"

"You will do no such thing," Dooku practically warned him. "You are too valuable to let go of. You pledged yourself to the service of the Banking Clan which is also allied with me. You've agreed to serve under me, Grievous. There is no way out except death; be it through me or through the hands of a Jedi…"

The cyborg alien would not have any more of this. He bellowed in fury and lunged for his lord and master, determined to avenge his family. His clawed hands were poised to maim and eviscerate and his feet were ready to crunch his bones into fine dust.

Smirking, Dooku released a stream of lightning from both of his hands. Brashly and with a bullheaded demeanor, Grievous continued his charge, confident he would overpower this lightning through his anger and determination. He was sadly mistaken as the current of blue electricity hit him and then pushed him clear across the room. Grievous smashed into the wall on the opposite side of the room and fell to the ground. He was unconscious; Dooku was not keen on killing a potentially great general that he wanted to test.

For a moment, he forgot that outside the room, another ally of his was hovering just outside the door, eavesdropping on everything. He was reminded of this minion when he could sense the tense energy and apprehensiveness oozing from them.

"You may enter, Chairman," Dooku said calmly, turning around to properly receive the lingerer.

Literally a second after he voiced his clearance, the door opened. A tall, lanky, emaciated-looking figure hustled into the room. At first glance, the being looked like some sort of hideously mutated and plighted Human but in reality, he was a Muun. The alien stood at Dooku's side and stared across the other side of the room where the unconscious form of Grievous still lied.

"Count Dooku," San Hill gasped, thinking the fallen Jedi had slain the cyborg. "Is he..?!"

"No, no need to be alarmed," the Sith assured. "There was a bout of rebellion that needed to be quelled. He is merely unconscious." Some worry marks formed, creating more wrinkles on his forehead. "I must say that the Geonosians machinations in emphasizing his rage worked as planned… Plus some manipulation and convincing on my part had given way to this miniature field of death you see now."

The banker grimaced at the scene. Although he himself had bounty hunters and other agents carry out his will in "debt collection" and other "business transactions", he had no stomach for watching such things being executed. He himself wasn't so sure if it was a wise choice to follow Count Dooku's decision to execute Grievous' family since he had feared the wrath of the cyborg.

"Uh, 'rebellion', Count?" San Hill pressed, becoming more anxious and wanting more answers.

"Come now, Chairman," Dooku sniffed and raised his head slightly. "I know you've been hovering outside the room the entire time. Surely you had to have heard every little thing that happened!"

The Muun nodded his head gravely.

"I just needed confirmation is all, Count," he retorted. "It appears that he was not in the slightest pleased when he awoke from your influence. When he wakes up, he will do what he had done to his clan to us!"

"That is such an obsolete fear…" Dooku remarked. "He will be unconscious for an hour or so and it will give us plenty of time to make last minute alterations to him before his surgery can truly be considered complete."

"For what exactly? If you don't mind me asking, sir? His reconfigurations had been very costly and Gunray might be reluctant to put more money into this…"

"Viceroy will happily do so since if he does not, his life will be on the line. Because if these final procedures are not carried out, then he will still remember everything that occurred a few minutes earlier and seek to exact his revenge."

San Hill smirked at the idea was hinting to. Already, he felt relieved that he would be spared from Grievous' potentially new vendetta against the Separatists. Chuckling softly to himself, he glanced over at the once organic warrior's duranium shell.

"Erasing some of his memories, perhaps?" the Muun guessed, confident he was right.

"Correct," Lord Tyranus confirmed. "Don't worry, Chairman. I will not allow him to be killed in our own self defense or allow him to rebel against us. We will simply remove the memory of the slaughter from his mind and we will come up with a new excuse to explain his family's disappearance. We will pin it on the Republic and the Jedi as we had done with his shuttle crash. His new body was far too expensive to be shrugged off if we did lose him. We have a soul who already has an intense hatred of the Republic before he joined us. Not only that, he has the keen and masterful mind of strategist that will most certainly seek to test and employ against our enemy. He is also perhaps one of our most capable warriors that we have so far and I must admit that we are somewhat lucky to have him under our control."

"However, I must admit I am nursing a personal yet insignificant fear at my heart… It appears to me that we've created a monster."

Dooku turned to face the door. He gestured San Hill to follow him and the alien did that without any hesitation. They walked out of the room together, exiting it and stepping into the hallway. The door behind them shut, concealing and cutting off the evil sight from the prying eyes of the galaxy.

A group of eight Geonosians had accompanied the Banking Clan Chairman to the room and were waiting further orders from their superiors. The insectile aliens turned their complete attention to Dooku and Hill, their wings twitching in anticipation and bowed to them respectfully.

"I have two new tasks for you," Dooku addressed them. "I need four of you to carry our mechanical friend's body back to the surgical suite for one last minute operation. Inform the medical staff that I will be on my way momentarily to explain what I need done to him."

Four Geonosians clicked in answer to his order. As directed, the small group entered the room to carry out the Sith's will. The four remaining expectantly gazed back at the duo.

"This job will require more of you to carry out effectively because it's…quite messy," said the elderly man. "Destroy the bodies in that room and clean up the blood on the floor. I do not care how you do it. I don't want Grievous to find any evidence of what happened in there. Have I made myself perfectly clear?"

One of the Geonosians hooted in approval and the other three nodded their heads. Two of them ran off to grab a medical capsule or cart of some sort to make the task of transporting the bodies easier and to rally more of their brethren to assist in the task. The other two went into the room to begin piling the carcasses atop one another to try to organize the grisly room.

Upon seeing his orders being put into motion, Dooku started to walk off. Without looking over his shoulder at Hill, he said something to the Muun.

"I must inform my Master that it has been done," he said briefly.


End file.
